


A Duty of a Queen and of a Friend

by fluffybun



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Missing Scene, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 13:49:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3136724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffybun/pseuds/fluffybun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One never runs out of duties both as a friend and as a Queen of Narnia. Lucy stops Caspian from making a dreadful mistake as his friend, as one who might like him more than a friend, and as a fellow royal of Narnia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Duty of a Queen and of a Friend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [queenmidalah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenmidalah/gifts).



> I hope you like this, queenmidalah!
> 
> All italicized text taken directly from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

“If you go back to Narnia again, Lucy – don’t fall in love” Peter had advised her not long after they had returned to their own world. “Su and I cannot go back, soon you and Edmund might not be able to. The time flows so differently here and there – I don't want you to be hurt.“

“I think I am still too young to fall in love, Peter” she said as lightly as she could, “even if I was and still am a Queen of Narnia.”

His smile was gentle in its sadness. “I hope so, Queen Lucy of Narnia.”

***

"Lady," said Caspian, "I hope to speak with you again when I have broken the enchantments." And Ramandu's daughter looked at him and smiled.

She had felt a pang of envy, sadness, when she had seen Caspian look upon the beautiful golden haired lady, one with beauty she could never hope to achieve, with wonder ‘like those struck with Cupid’s arrow’ as they said in school. But remembering Peter’s advice, she cast away the pang of envy – she couldn’t let that feeling grow, not now, not this close to the end of their journey. She would still have him as her friend, still travel with him to the End of the World – that would be enough for her, who would have to go back to her own world.

But now, seeing him determined to go with Reepicheep to the End of the World, she knew two things: one, it was too late to not fall in love, and two, she had to stop him before he did what he wanted, Caspian half-crazed like this and determined to see the End of the World and forgetting everything he would leave behind.

Her heart, it was breaking. She had to remind him, this determined Caspian, of what he had waiting for him. 

_"And what are we to do about the Sleepers?" asked Caspian. "In the world from which my friends come" (here, he nodded at Eustace and the Pevensies) "they have a story of a prince or a king coming to a castle where all the people lay in an enchanted sleep. In that story he could not dissolve the enchantment until he had kissed the Princess."_

_"But here," said the girl, "it is different. Here he cannot kiss the Princess till he has dissolved the enchantment."_

_"Then," said Caspian, "in the name of Aslan, show me how to set about that work at once."_

Edmund and Eustace may not have understood it then, maybe thinking that Caspian and Ramandu’s daughter were only talking like people in fairytales do, but Lucy did. Caspian, her friend who she had seen as a Prince become King and met again as a King, had finally found his Princess. It would be like a fairytale – to break an enchantment and find his future queen near the end of his quest, the prize for all that he had suffered. 

It wouldn’t be the right kind of fairytale, the one with the happily ever afters, if the prince never returned to kiss his princess after breaking the enchantment.

Peter was right, she thought sadly. It would hurt. But as a Queen of Narnia, she would do what she had to do - both for her friend and for Narnia.

 _"And you've almost promised Ramandu's daughter to go back,"_ Lucy said, her heart knowing that what she was doing was right, even if it hurt.


End file.
